Does the Paintbrush tool seem lighter to you?

[RobbyCobalt]

I'm just gonna start by saying that I really love the recent update to Paint.net! The whole thing is a lot easier to use and everything just flows a lot nicer now, and that's really helpful in so many ways! (Especially the Paint Bucket; a lot easier to use)

 

One thing I've noticed though is that the Paintbrush tool seems to draw a bit lighter than it used to.

Here's the scenario, when I'm drawing using Paint.net, I prefer to use the paintbrush tool set to black with a brush width of 1, zoomed in to 200% for a bit more accuracy and so it doesn't look as jagged. It made for a simple line-art thing that I grew comfortable using.

 

Before the update, when I was drawing in black, the lines were black. If it was zoomed in, there might be some dark-grey from the tool dispersing the colour over two-or-more pixels, but in all the line was ostensibly black. (Or at least very dark)

 

Now however, if I'm zoomed in past 100%, the lines come out a lighter shade of grey. While it's not really a problem, I prefer to have darker lines when I draw because I like to colour with greyscale colours and dark lines tend to work a lot better; the lighter lines tend to blend with whatever shade of grey I'd be colouring with. It's especially frustrating when the colour I want to fill with is the same as the line.

 

I'm not sure if this is something that's only happening to me or not as I can't seem to find any information regarding this. I'm not entirely sure if it's a new setting that I don't know about or haven't experimented with yet or if it's just the way things are now or if it's just a glitch or something like that. Regardless, I would prefer it to be darker and was wondering if there's a way to make it so.

 

In short; Is there any way to have darker lines with the Paintbrush tool?
 

[Rick Brewster]

Play with the Hardness value in the toolbar. You may not get proper black at the default brush width of 2 and default hardness of 75%. You will, however, if you change it to a hardness value of 100%.

 

(I just verified this)

[RobbyCobalt]

I have been using the hardness at 100%, but I've been using a brush width of 1. I can't see any difference in the darkness at all when I play with the hardness at that brush width.

[BoltBait]

I have been using the hardness at 100%, but I've been using a brush width of 1.

Use the pencil tool?

[Rick Brewster]

At a brush width of 1 there won't be any difference depending on the Harndess value. When I scribble into an area with pure black and then sample it with the color picker I end up with almost pure black (#010101). I'll check it out.

[Humility]

Toggle the brush's anti-aliasing. Disable it.

Edited July 6, 2014 by Humility

[RobbyCobalt]

While the pencil tool is technically an option, it makes everything look quite jagged, as does turning the anti-aliasing off, so I'd prefer not to use them.

 

I appreciate all the suggestions though. Is there anything else I could be doing? Is there a certain blending mode I could be using or anything like that? I'm not exactly 100% on all the different functions yet.

[Rick Brewster]

Actually I just tested this again and I'm having no trouble getting pure black from the paintbrush when the width is set to 1 and hardness at 75%. You just have to scribble enough for the 'soft edge' to accumulate enough.

 

It looks like you just gotta experiment with brush sizes and hardness values. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find something that does what you need.

[CustomSaga]

So it seems impossible to get the same stroke with the new paintbrush tool as one could with 3.5x. This has completely crippled my shading style, and that's pretty sucky because Paint.NET has been my tool of choice throughout my artistic career (not that there is much of a career to speak of).

Is there any way in which we can have a rollback? It's not that I hate 4.0 in general, it's great - but the paintbrush just doesn't function as well at all. Everything seems too soft, even at 100% hardness?

[Humility]

Might not be the softness effecting you. 4.0 has for some unknown and yet to be adequately explained reason, this 'spacing parameter' where it won't paint at all until the brush has moved at list 0.25% away from the last place you painted. Which can make the whole thing feel weirdly soft. My guess its pretty much mandatory training wheels to prevent accidental clicks.

 

As for the rollback, unless you have the 3.5 installer still on your computer. You are out of luck. Paint.net doesn't offer older versions of it. You'll have to try your luck downloading a virus laden adware filled one off the net somewhere.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Humility

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

I had to change my PC's display settings to have my brush issue sorta fixed. Maybe your screen display settings are part of your guys' issues too? See here to see what half fixed things for me : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/27976-circumference-of-tools-the-edge-of-the-paint/

Post #10 is where I talk about the half fix.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Cc4FuzzyHuggles

[Rick Brewster]

Might not be the softness effecting you. 4.0 has for some unknown and yet to be adequately explained reason, this 'spacing parameter' where it won't paint at all until the brush has moved at list 0.25% away from the last place you painted. Which can make the whole thing feel weirdly soft. My guess its pretty much mandatory training wheels to prevent accidental clicks.

 

There's also a bug I've fixed for the next update which causes it to be 1 step behind. I did explain this in the "paint.net 4.0 is now available" thread.

[CustomSaga]

I'm just really bummed out because I've not been able to draw since the upgrade. Like, I tried, but I just... Can't. And I don't want to have to re-learn my entire technique because the paintbrush got scogged in the update.

Why are you not allowing people to download 3.5 any more? Surely if they want to there's no harm in it?

[sashwilko]

Why are you not allowing people to download 3.5 any more? Surely if they want to there's no harm in it?

If you kept a copy of version 3.5.11 on your hard drive or elsewhere, you can roll back to the previous version by running the 3.5.11 installer. Keep in mind any support for previous versions has stopped

[Rick Brewster]

I had to change my PC's display settings to have my brush issue sorta fixed. Maybe your screen display settings are part of your guys' issues too? See here to see what half fixed things for me : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/27976-circumference-of-tools-the-edge-of-the-paint/

Post #10 is where I talk about the half fix.

 

Those two issues are not related

[CustomSaga]

If you kept a copy of version 3.5.11 on your hard drive or elsewhere, you can roll back to the previous version by running the 3.5.11 installer. Keep in mind any support for previous versions has stopped

I don't though, so I can't

I'm just asking why the decision has been made to stop people from downloading the older builds?

[barbieq25]

CustomSaga, the answer is in the forum rules at the bottom right of the screen. Especially rules 7 & 8. 

[david.atwell]

CustomSaga, the answer is in the forum rules at the bottom right of the screen. Especially rules 7 & 8. 

Also on the homepage, at the top with the big "Yes, everyone! That means YOU!"

[Humility]

If its allowed I'll tell you my skype name and you can add my on Skype long enough for me to send you the 3.5 installer.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Humility

[CustomSaga]

I'll re-read them, I read them upon joining, I'm just a little concerned is all.

[david.atwell]

I'll re-read them, I read them upon joining, I'm just a little concerned is all.

 

 

Okay, so the bottom line is this: the entire support staff for Paint.NET are volunteers who have real-world jobs that don't involve Paint.NET.  We don't get paid anything, except Rick and the plugin authors who ask for donations.  We barely have enough time to adequately support the current version of Paint.NET - if we officially released prior versions, we'd have even less time than we do right now.

 

Trust me, nobody is getting rich off the decision to only support 4.0.  That said, if you'd like to make a huge donation, I'm sure we could make some sort of arrangement.  I accept large amounts of bitcoin...

[Humility]

I think he is saying that if they offered to let people download older versions. They would be legally responsible for them and have to spend extra time doing stuff with it.

[david.atwell]

Yeah, and that's fine to say, but it really doesn't work itself out in practice.  If people download something here, they expect to be able to get support for it here.  Trust me, I've been here for eight years.  It does happen.

[RobbyCobalt]

That's great and all guys, but did we get anywhere on the lightness issue? I mean it's great that you guys kept the thread alive, but I think it deviated from it's original purpose a bit.

 

There's no blending mode for it or anything like that? Or one that's at least darker? I'm still not 100% on what they all do.

 

It's not something that could be re-added as an option or something like that in a future fix?  I mean, I really like 4.0, so I'm probably not going to go back, but it would be fantastic if I could use the standard brush again. Apparently there'd be plenty of people who would use it

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

Have you tried using the pixel grid? Depending on where I click I get different results. Clicking directly in a pixel grid square makes a good black square of my paint. While clicking on a cross-road of the pixel grid makes a light gray four pixel square of my paint. This is of course because of the antialias and new soft/hardness of the brush. (I posted this video about antialiasing on another thread, but you might find it interesting too.)
 
With drawing, I found simply duplicating the layers makes things blacker.
 
I personally prefer to use the line/curve tool as it makes neat and clean lines, and if you make a line while holding the shift key it will make the line draw at perfect angles, such as 90 degrees.